Dipper and Mabel stretched out on the living room floor of the Mystery Shack, the book lying open in between them. "It's amazing," Dipper gushed, struggling to keep his voice low as he showed his twin what he'd discovered. "Grunkle Stan said I was being paranoid, but according to this book, Gravity Falls has this secret dark side."

"Whoa," Mabel breathed, eyes sparkling. "Shut. Up." She pushed his shoulder and he grinned at her, glad that she was sharing his enthusiasm.

"And get this," he continued. "After a certain point, the pages just stop. Like the guy who was writing it mysteriously disappeared." The doorbell rang and Dipper flinched, startled. "Who's that?"

"Well, time to spill the beans," Mabel said, jumping to her feet and knocking over a can of beans that had been perched precariously on a table. "Whoops, beans!" Not at all bothered by the mess, his twin's brilliant smile widened as she proclaimed, "This girl's got a date! Woot, woot!"

"Let me get this straight," Dipper replied incredulously. "In the half hour I was gone, you already found a boyfriend." He'd been extremely aware of the humiliating fact that Mabel had been flirting with pretty much any boy she'd encountered this summer but he hadn't thought her attempts would actually work. At least not in such a short amount of time.

"What can I say?" was Mabel's chipper response. "I guess I'm just irresistible!" The doorbell rang twice more, making Mabel whirl around like a hyper puppy. "Oh, coming!" She darted out of the room and Dipper stared after her for a moment before rising and sinking down into what was normally Grunkle Stan's armchair, the book open in his lap.

He was just getting to the point of being absorbed into what the book was saying when someone tugged on it. His head snapped up as he pulled back, hugging the book tightly to his chest. There was no one in the room with him, but Dipper was sure he hadn't imagined the feeling of someone trying to pull the book away. That meant that book had been right. Someone was watching Dipper, someone that wanted the book. "What'cha reading there, slick?"

Grunkle Stan's voice drew Dipper's attention away from his suspicions as he scrambled to shove the book under the cushion he was sitting on and grab a magazine from the table. He thought he heard an irritated sigh at his actions but he ignored it in his rush to look like he was actually reading whatever magazine he'd picked up. "I was just catching up on, uh..." He paused his babble, frantically glancing at the cover of the magazine and then barely resisting the urge to wrinkle his nose at what he saw. At least it wasn't one of Mabel's teen girl magazine's with the personality quizzes inside but still, "Gold Chains for Old Men magazine?"

"That's a good issue," was Stan's unbothered reply and Dipper breathed out a sigh of relief.

An amused snicker echoed in his ear, making him jump just as Mabel bounded in dragging a boy in a sweatshirt with her. "Hey family, say hello to my new boyfriend!'

"Sup?" the guy inquired

"Hey..." Dipper replied awkwardly.

"How's it hanging?" Stan added, making Dipper want to bang his head on the arm of the chair. Grunkle Stan had to be getting close to a hundred years old, so why did he insist on talking like he was Dipper and Mabel's age?

"We met at the cemetery," Mabel continued, oblivious to how creepy that sounded. "He's really deep." She squeezed his arm and looked startled, adding, "Oh, little muscle there. That's...what a surprise!"

"So what's your name?" Dipper asked in an effort to be nice. The guy might have been a little creepy, but Mabel was happy and that was important.

"Uh, Normal...man!" came the reply.

Mabel giggled awkwardly at that and said quickly, "He means Norman."

Okay, this whole situation was getting stranger by the second. Dipper's fingers itched to open the book and figure out what exactly was wrong with Norman. "Are you bleeding Norman?" Dipper inquired, watching a trail of red slide from Norman's eye. It was sickening, but Dipper couldn't tear his eyes away from the scene.

"It's jam," was Norman's quick reply.

"I love jam," Mabel squealed before giggle. "Look. At. This." She made each word its own sentence as she looked at Dipper as if daring him to ruin this for her. He couldn't. At least not until he had proof that Norman wasn't human.

"So, you wanna go hold hands or...whatever?" Norman suggested awkwardly, probably sensing the very tangible tension between the Pines twins.

"Oh, oh my goodness," Mabel gushed. "Don't wait up," she called to her family and then practically dragged Norman out of the Mystery Shack, leaving Stan and Dipper staring after her. After a minute Stan shrugged and shuffled out of the living room, probably heading out to swindle more customers. That was when Dipper pulled out the book. There was definitely something suspicious about Norman, and Dipper was pretty sure the book had the answers he was looking for.

He'd just opened it up when the feminine voice who'd finished the quotation Dipper had been reading out of the book in the forest said, "Finally! I thought you'd never be alone."

Dipper's head snapped around to take in the figure sitting perched on the edge of the TV. She looked to be about Wendy's age with high cheekbones and almond shaped wine red eyes. Her hair was dark as a raven's wing and hanging in twisted braids against her pale skin. Pale pink lips pulled back in a smirk at the boy's surprise, revealing jagged, shark like teeth. "W-who are you?" he stuttered and her grin widened. "What are you?"

"Good questions kiddo," came the blithe response. "But you're not gonna get any answers. Let me tell you what you're going to do. You're going to hand over that book and then you're going to forget that any of this ever happened."

"I'm not giving you the book," Dipper protested, clutching the book tightly to his chest.

"Well, I did try to do this the easy way," she said, tapping sharp black nails on the edge of the ancient television set. "Too bad I guess." Then she slid off the set to tower over him. "One last chance kiddo. Hand over the book and I won't have to erase you from existence." Dipper shook his head and pressed himself further back into the chair, clinging to the book. If he lost the book there was no way he was going to be able to save his sister from whatever monster she had following her around.

The creature in front of him paused for a moment, as if waiting for an answer, and then sighed. "So that's how its gonna be, huh? Too bad." Dipper flinched in anticipation of coming pain when those razor sharp nails sliced through the air towards him and felt...nothing. Instead he heard a startled sounding yelp and his eyes opened just a crack. The menacing figure that had been looming over him had retreated to the far wall, blood dripping from her throat, the exact same spot her nails had been aiming for on him. "You're a Pines, aren't you?" she rasped, spitting out a mouthful of too dark blood out on the floor where it sizzled and hissed, burning a small divot in the floor.

"Why does that matter?" Dipper demanded, not moving from his spot in the chair.

"Just answer the question," the creature snapped, straightening up as the wounds under the blood slowly began to stitch themselves together.

"Y-yeah," Dipper stuttered out, eyes going wide again as the creature groaned.

"Of course. The first person to find that journal in years and you're a Pines. Just my luck."

"What are you talking about?" Dipper asked, fear fading away to be replaced with curiosity.

He got a petulant scowl in response, the creature folding her arms across her chest. The white, almost translucent skin seemed to glow against the darkness of her clothing. "The writer had a certain...fondness for the Pine family," she said sourly, spitting out another gob of blood. "That any harm you, against them do, will be given back twice as much to you," she added, as if reciting some sort of poem. "That kind of crap. Anyhow, it means you and I have to settle on a little arrangement."

"What kind of arrangement?" Dipper questioned warily, relaxing some in the chair but still clutching the book to his chest.

"I can't make you give up the book, not if you're a Pines, but I'm not here to babysit you," she told him, eyes narrowing. "I'm here to keep track of the book and keep it safe, nothing more. Any mess you get into, you get out of yourself, understand?" She waited for Dipper's stunned nod before vanishing, leaving behind smoke that gradually faded away, taking the scent of black licorice with it.